As we arrived at the clinic around 9:15 there were another 25-30 people waiting for us. We are in a pretty good routine now. Sheri triages all the patients, Gloria takes most of the extractions, I the fillings. Any tough extractions; I work with Gloria to get them out. Fillings are a bit stressful in that all the decay is very deep; the decision is always: too deep to save, (no root canals here), very, very deep, so I put in a sedative filling, or deep but restorable; I place a composite filling. Never ideal, but better then leaving the decay.
Our last dental crew, this includes our three students, Jackie the gal in red, assisted me the whole time. She is bilingual and really helped with communication. In the back is Raul, our local translator. He also was a patient. Some time ago, he had two upper 1st bicuspids taken out. The local dentist managed to break off both roots. They have been infected ever since. Great relief for him to get them out and the infection starting to heal. Also in the picture is Maureen. She is a Dental Hygienist from North Carolina. She has been here for 3 months!! Just loves doing mission work, she took a leave of absence from her dentist’s office to come down here. Nice gal! The other picture portrays the line that is always waiting for us when we arrive every morning.
We actually finish a bit early today, so we pack everything up and head into headquarters to store the supplies and equipment. Try again to upload this blog, spent an hour and a half doing so unsuccessfully. No bandwidth in Iquitos. Interesting in that we have travelled all over the world and this part of Peru has the worst access. Surprising nowadays. Not even internet cafes around.
The rest of the crew finished their last well today. The road was flooded part of the way, so they had to carry the equipment and pipe on a sandbag “bridge”. The family they put the well in for consisted of a mom with three kids. Her house was a thatch roof and four corner pillars, no walls! They slept on a raised section of boards. Extremely primitive. The well was successful, there actually is another group from Michigan coming in the build her a new house in the next few weeks.
Our island continues to shrink. Our bridge to the island is completely submerged for the last 20 yards. As we walk by faith now. The water level was about 2 inches below the tops of our boots, it may be to the tops of our boots by morning. As I may have mentioned before, the relocated two of the four pit toilets to higher ground, so we are in good shape there again. Showers haven’t been moved, but the water is lapping up to them now.
This is the last 20 yards of our “bridge” to the island. If you look real closely you can see the wood below. The water has probably raised over 3 feet since we arrived 12 days ago. The next picture is the two abandoned outhouses, the water on the left is slowly submerging them.
Tomorrow is a day to relax, we then pack up and move out on Wednesday, our flight is late Wednesday night.
No comments:
Post a Comment